


Timetube

by dollarpound



Category: Community (TV), Inspector Spacetime, Red Dwarf
Genre: Baked bean wrestling, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 05:55:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9308393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollarpound/pseuds/dollarpound
Summary: It’s snowing on Starbug when an early 21st century study group and an embittered android soap actor materialise.  Can Inspector Spacetime and Constable Reggie find a way for everything to go back to normal before the tape runs out?





	

She was gorgeous, flawless, breath-taking, but Android 97542/P didn’t have any breath to take because he was an android. She crossed her legs with a series of sexy pneumatic sighs and clicks and tilted her perfect metallic face so it caught the light perfectly without overheating. Which there was no danger of because she was a pleasure GELF.

‘So, Android 97542/P, here we are! Did you ever envisage that we’d be here... celebrating the 2000th episode of Androids.’

‘Oh I knew the the franchise had legs as soon as I saw the script.’

‘What was it about it? What’s the magic.’

‘Simple economics. There’s no way they would have commissioned it unless it had been bulk, filler, a chance to take advantage of Android labour laws and provide ideological fodder to keep Androids dreaming like electric sheep.’

‘So you really knew all that time ago that the series would run this long? How long have they been making the show now?’

‘A year, we do six episodes a day.’

‘That’s quite the workload.’

‘Well, it beats working in sanitation.’

‘How did you become an actor?’

‘Went to Mecha, the Mecca for Mechanoid show business, waited tables, went to auditions... the usual.’

‘And tell us a bit about how you approach your role, what’s it like playing Brooke?’

‘In order to act, to become someone else, you have to turn off all your personal affairs, all the distractions and claims to our attention and emotions that we’re bombarded with in our everyday lives. The actor must become blank and passive to let the character speak and move through you.’

‘Fascinating,’ said the GELF ‘Can you explain a bit to us, because there may be aspiring actors watching, hoping for some advice, without giving your secrets away of course, how you begin to approach this technique of clearing the mind, of switching off everything competing for your attention.’

‘Sure, I just literally switch it off actually. There’s a switch. I switch it.’

‘I see. Fascinating! And then when you reach this blank state, how to go about *becoming* Brooke?’

‘Well I just download the new scripts. When I run the script the words just come out of me automatically along with any other stage directions. Then I just wait for the day to end.’

‘Well, the *year* has ended now and I don’t think any of your fans would blame you for enjoying a drink.’ The runner wheeled on the tray with the flasks of liquid nitrogen and the GELF and the android clinked glasses and sipped the steaming potion. ‘To Androids,’ smiled the female Android GELF and then the director shouted Cut! and the two of them immediately spat out the liquid as the crew hunched over the rushes.

‘Someone get me a real drink,’ demanded Android 97542/P and the runner nervously brought over a Scotch.

‘Me, too, please,’ said the GELF.

‘Sorry. I just assumed.’ Android 97542/P had had his internal organs adapted so he could process alcohol. He hated the way Androids had been programmed to eat nuts and bolts for breakfast just because humans thought it cute. He wanted the finer things in life.

‘That’s OK, androids don’t usually drink,’ said one of the finer things in life.

‘But you do because...’

‘I’m not an android.’

‘You’re not? What are you then?’

‘I’m a ratings booster. I’m the hottest sexiest TV presenter there’s ever been...’

‘I can see that.’

‘But so can everyone else. Because everyone sees their heart’s desire when they see me, so everyone will be happy on some stupid level when they watch the show, even if they have no interest in the subject matter. I’m part of a trial, they’re considering rolling it out across the network.’

‘What’s your name,’ asked Android 97542/P.

‘Lee-Anne.’

‘Lovely to meet you Lee-Anne. Not often I get to share a Scotch with the droid of my dreams.’

‘Ah, so you’re an electric sheep, too?’

‘You bet, lets join the flock and see how this looks,’ he said, guiding her over to where the crew were staring at a monitor looking pained. When Lee-Anne and Android 97542/P pushed in enough to see they looked at each other with the same pained expressions. Android 97542/P was being interviewed by a giant fluffy boom mic with muppet mouth and googly eyes.

‘Well, the *camera* certainly loves you,’ said the Director.

‘Boom-boom,’ said the runner.

Lee-Anne’s genetically engineered heart sank, she’d lost the gig, the idea was stupid, the camera had just picked up what the camera desired.

‘Wow. She really pops on screen though, no?’ Everyone looked at Android 97542/P like he was crazy. So he just locked his face in its sincerity and watched them try and look like they’d never looked like he was crazy. ‘People are going to love this! So... everything in the can? That a wrap?’

‘Oh, we were hoping you could just answer a few fan questions, it won’t take long.’

‘Great.’

Make-up came and polished Android 97542/P's noble face and Lee-Anne whispered ‘Wow you can act off-piste?’

The crude pink angular face of a series 4000 or possibly a late series 3000 mechanoid flickered gormlessly onto the screen. The mechanoid was shy, stealing himself... he just managed to say ‘Hi Android 97542/P, this is Kryten 2X4B-523P - is there any news about the rumoured cross-over with Inspector Spacetime?’ Inspector Spacetime? Android 97542/P hated Inspector Spacetime, with its racist portrayal of robots as these mono-syllabic one track killing machines.

‘Well Kryten, thanks for watching. Inspector Spacetime...’ and then it started snowing. On set. Inside. ‘What the silicon hell is going on?’ demanded Android 97542/P. ‘I mean just what the smeg is going on with you bunch of amateurs...’ The snow was rapidly building in intensity. You could barely see now. ‘Lee-Anne, lets get out of here, you like Mimosian?’ He tried to grab her hand but tripped over some cables and the next thing he knew found himself sprawled on the grubby floor of some industrial looking ship-to-surface vessel.

cCO

He rolled over and moaned. The air was feted and dusty. Slowly and shakily he got himself on his feet, gripping a table that glowed white. He took it in, the rusty chains hanging in shanks from the ceiling, the oil spattered dented walls, pig-iron industrialia... Damn! Where could he get a drink round here. He drifted into the galley area and searched the cupboards. Two forbidding bottles, one labelled ‘Urine Recyc’, the other ‘Marijuana Gin’. Liquid nitrogen sounded good next to that. The place seemed abandoned, the engines purred depressingly. Through the cockpit hatch he could see an unfamiliar starfield. He sauntered in and started browsing the ship’s operating system. He was 3 million years into space. Why? How? He was freaking out.

‘Hi,’ said a voice. Android 97542/P turned to see a handsome human male standing there.

‘This your ship? Look I don’t know how I got here, please go easy...’

‘Sure, don’t worry, we’re not sure how we got here either. All I know is it was snowing, then...’

‘There was this talking microphone with googly eyes. To celebrate 2000 episodes...’

‘...And a movie,’ finished Jeff.

‘Wait, there was no movie.’

‘There was going to be but the financing was a scam, that’s why there’s a 10 year fallow period before it gets picked up by British cable,’ said Abed, appearing in the midsection.

‘Wait we’re really here aren’t we, this is real,’ said Jeff. The nebulae were intensely beautiful, but they were just in this bubble that held in the dear dusty air. That was it between them and the cold deadly harshness of deep space going on forever. Loose bits of the ship would vibrate and small flows of air emitted from perforations in the fixtures. It was cosy and depressing. It would be a nice place to come and binge watch box sets. But only if you could get out again.

‘How are we going to get out of here?’ asked Annie.

‘Oh, hello. Are you Kryten?’ asked Shirley.

‘Where’s Rimmer?’ asked Britta. They had been gradually filing in from the corridor.

‘Like what you done with the place,’ said Troy ‘Kind of a cyberpunk with a bit of Aliens. Some nice decorative chains.’

‘Rimmer’s exploring different timelines as Ace Rimmer,’ said Abed patiently. ‘He comes back next series, that’s what we’re here to warn them about.’

‘Kryten? No my name’s Android 97542/P.’

‘Ah, they didn’t give you a proper name?’

‘Android 97542/P is a good android name, nothing wrong with that. I was actually born Alfred, but that’s such an anthro name. I was rebellious and idealistic when I was younger.’

‘And now?’ asked Jeff.

‘Now, I just want a Scotch. I was just enjoying one when this blizzard started and now we’re stuck 3 million years from the solar system.’

‘Me too,’ said Jeff.

‘So how are we going to get out of here,’ recapitulated Annie.

‘Well, looking at the ship’s inventory, I’d say...’ he pressed some buttons ‘quite easily. The ship’s packed with futuristic tech. Stasis Booths, Laser Cannons, and a... Time Drive?’ Android 97542/P was stunned. The prosaic grubbiness of the ship hadn’t prepared him for *this*. Surely there was no such thing as a time drive?

But then how long does it take to get 3 million years into space? Long enough for some kind of AI that was to come, an ubermech that could unlock the mysteries of spacetime and bring out a machine that could bend it like putty. Android 97542/P’s head was spinning. Literally.

‘Are you, okay?’ asked Annie sweetly but with a flicker of panic.

‘Sorry,’ said Android 97542/P as his head slowed down and came to rest at an unsettling angle somehow. ‘My head is spinning,’ his said gruffly.

‘Er. No. This is you with your head not spinning,’ said Jeff.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ said Android 97542/P ‘my head is spinning,’ his head still at this angle you wouldn’t normally hold your head at.

‘Stop *saying* that!’ outbursted Troy shyly.

‘Your head’s not spinning now,’ chorused the others.

‘Sorry, it’s been a rough day. You know what it is, I’m not waterproof and I’ve got melted snow in my... hang on, that doesn’t make sense...’

‘No wait, that makes sense!’ said Jeff.

‘It does?’ asked Android 97542/P exasperating.

‘Yes!’ chorused the others.

‘Were you anywhere near a TV set?’ asked Abed. It was Abed who made the connection between TV snow and indoor snow, when they had been vegging out together, saying they wished they could warn the crew about series 8.

‘Now you mention it, yes.’

‘And what was on the set?’ Abed fired back straight away.

‘A mechanoid.’

‘And what was the mechanoid called? Was he called Kryten 2X4B-523P?’

‘I don’t know I’m not that good with names. Seriously this makes sense? It was snowing inside for Pete’s smeg! I haven’t seen that much powdery white stuff since the 2280’s.’

‘Did he have a head like an amusingly shaped pile of mashed potato?’ fired back Abed straight away ‘Would you say it was more like a novelty condom, a badly damaged crash test dummy, Herman Munster’s stunt double, or a half eaten lollipop?’

‘Er, kind of, yeah,’ said Android 97542/P dazedly.

Abed frowned with dissatisfaction. ‘Did he have an accent like an Englishman doing Canadian? Why do you have an accent like an Englishman doing Australian?’

‘Huh?’ said Android 97542/P in a week Australian accent.

‘That’s enough Abed!’ said Jeff dramatically and Annie tingled. Abed held his hand up to Android 97542/P as if to say sorry. ‘Can’t you see the poor man’s head is spinning?’

‘Actually it’s stopped spinning now.’

‘No smeg,’ said Abed. Annie gasped, scandalised by Abed swearing.

‘Could one of you please set my head straight?’ The group looked at each other shyly demurring to each other. Britta stepped forward and gently, carefully reached out her hands. But when she touched the Android’s metallic skin suddenly lurched back and screamed.

‘You okay,’ said Jeff compassionately putting his arm around her. He reprehended the Android with a handsome scowl.

‘Sorry,’ said Android 97542/P ‘I’m not waterproof you see.’

‘Thanks for the prior warning!’ said Britta scoldingly.

‘I’ve got waterdamage you see. If it would make you feel better, if you smash the side of my head with that cricket bat it will earth the current and you won’t get a shock plus hopefully it will set my head straight.’ With a blood curdling codkarate scream Britta smashed his head with the cricket bat with ferocious force.

‘Always been something not quite right about that girl,’ said Shirley sternly and quietly.

‘Weirdly violent slapstick’s more of a series 8 thing,’ added Abed reprovingly. ‘It must be something to do with Kryten.’

‘That’s better,’ said Android 97542/P, his head spinning like a Sufi in a whirlpool ‘my head’s finally stopped spinning.’

‘Why Kryten Abed?’ asked Jeff.

‘Series VII Kryten is jerkarse Kryten. Everything that goes wrong is his fault because he feels threatened by Lister’s relationship with Kochanski. And it’s always totally disproportional and puts everyone’s life in danger because despite the show reinventing itself as more of a comedy drama set in space rather than the established action comedy of series VI and situation comedy set in space format of previous series still has a kind of over the top irreverence.’

‘Hang on a minute, did you say “everyone’s life in danger”?’ repeated Troy trying to reestablish the gravity of the situation.

‘Of course it’s a comedy drama so it has to be dramatic and over the top. Also we’re not the main characters so we’re likely to get ki-‘ Everyone was staring at Abed.

‘You better have some kind of plan to get us out of here Abed.’ said Shirley portentously.

cCO

‘Got it,’ said Abed returning triumphantly with the small vial.

‘Are you sure that’s not urine recyc,’ said Android 97542/P gruffly without looking up from the time drive he was waiting to ‘install updates’. He took another hit of marijuana gin, he liked to drink, it helped him forget his lines.

‘Are you sure that stuff’s safe?’ chipped in Jeff. ‘It’s not going to turn you into some wife-beating hippy contradiction?’

‘Got what?’ asked Britta.

‘The mutated developing fluid from the series III episode Timeslides.’

‘Nice work, Captain Kirk.’

‘Wrong show,’ said Troy.

‘Well that is kind of the whole problem in a nutshell isn’t it,’ said Jeff.

‘Actually there’s a Captain Kirk in the book version of Red Dwarf. If we pour some of this developing fluid on this Community video maybe we can use it to step through the screen back into our own Universe.’

‘Community video?’

‘It’s a TV show based on our study group. The good thing is there’s another series after Pearce leaves so it means we must make it back. This whole adventure must happen between official episodes.’

‘Hang-on, how come we’re a show in Red Dwarf?’

‘We’re a show within a show. This is meta with an n and a t,’ said Jeff.

‘I don’t know what the smeg you lot are talking about, why don’t you just take the time drive like me. I’ll drop you off.’

‘No, no, you can’t use the timedrive, it will backfire I know it.’

‘Then he can come with us,’ said Troy.

‘You could be the new Pearce,’ said Shirley ‘We need someone to make jokes about cocaine in the 80s.’

‘What are you guys on about?’ he said testily. ‘Jeez this Marijuana Spins making my head gin.’

‘I’m not surprised. Gin Alley meets Ganje Avenue sounds like a pile up,’ said Jeff.

‘You think he’ll get piles?’ asked Troy.

‘Why can’t I use the timedrive?’ he asked Abed, giving him a shot.

‘It’s a comedy it will go wrong.’

‘What do you mean it’s a comedy?’

‘Look... this is going to sound weird...’ said Troy, then he suddenly did a super-high sneeze.

‘That is weird,’ said Android 97542/P.

‘It’s weird isn’t it?’ everyone chorused.

‘Look I haven’t got time for this. You know what the last thing I remember is?’

‘Troy’s ridiculously high pitched sneeze?’

‘*No*. The last thing I remembered before it snowed. I met a pleasure GELF...’

‘Abed?’

‘Introduced in series four, Genetically Engineered Life Form that appears as whatever erotic possibility most pleases those looking at them and lives only to pleasure the viewer.’ Britta said ‘Rapey’ and Annie ‘Gross’ under their breaths at the same time. ‘...And we were just about to go out on a date. Just my luck.’

‘Look, this is going to sound weird,’ began Jeff. Everyone stared sternly at Troy and after the all clear wiped their brows. ‘But you’re a character, in a TV show.’ Jeff was leaning over the luminescent table, spooning out the syllables in controlled, warm manner. Meanwhile Abed was administering the video with the mutated developing fluid using a pipette and dialing the plastic cogs to smear the whole tape with the stuff.

‘I. Know,’ said Android 97542/P, who as we’ve established liked Scotch, boobs and turning words into sentences with an alacrity matched only by Jeff. ‘I’m an actor, I play Kyle in the android soap opera Androids.’ The ebullient Community theme tune started up in the background.

‘You don’t understand. This whole thing is a TV show. Why would an android soap opera be called Androids – that doesn’t make sense. Abed’s right, we’re in a comedy. The only way out is through the logic of comedy.’

Abed headbutted the TV. ‘Wait, maybe you can’t go into your own show!’

‘Logic of comedy my arse. Hang on – don’t I recognise you? You’re some villain from Inspector Spacetime... This is it isn’t it? I’ve been refusing to be involved in that franchise, the studio’s drugged me and made me do it.’

‘Inspector Spacetime!’ said Troy. The eleventh inspector and Constable Reggie entered the study room displayed on the TV Abed had rigged up.

‘When are we Inspector?’ asked Constable Reggie.

‘The question isn’t when, Reggie, the question is....’

‘Where are we??’

‘No, Reggie, the question isn’t where are *we*, the question is...’

‘Where... are... they...?’

‘No, the question is *who* are they.’

‘Who are who?’

‘The beings who stole our timedrive, who caused it to snow and brought us to the edge of time and space, where we found the fake oak cabinet containing the analogue magnetic device that acted as a portal...’

‘Once the air was sufficiently cool...’

‘Sufficiently cool, yes Reggie, sufficiently cool enough for us to be sucked into a dimensional blizzard, trapping us in this kooky community college in the early 21st century.’

‘Blimmin heck, Inspector, whoever, or whatever or whenever did this must be a being of such evil and power, our only hope is to retrieve the time-pick, that small plastic shield shaped item, that has the power to protect us from such inter-dimensional japery, for reasons unknown.’

Android 97542/P was still tampering with the timedrive, downing shots of Marijuana Gin and looking increasingly dishevelled. His chrome had lost its glossy sheen, sparks started coming out of his left ear. ‘I hate sci-fi!’ he suddenly shouted, enraged.

‘Shhhh!’ chorused the study group, who were huddled around the TV, displaying this bizarre sight, their homely study room populated with fictional characters from a no-budget cult British adventure serial.

‘I suppose this thing is just a prop!’ he continued ‘This whole thing is just a work of fiction. My agent must have reneged on our deal. No sci-fi. You know how much easier my career would have been if I’d played that card, that hackneyed stereotype?

‘Shhh!’ shh-ed Troy.

‘I know you have a problem with the sauce,’ said Shirley.

‘Damn you all!’ shouted Android 97542/P. He slammed the timedrive and when it hit the table he and the time drive disappeared.

‘Shit!’ said Britta.

Abed unpaused the video. ‘Precisely,’ said Inspector Spacetime ‘It is our only hope. Without it we are trapped here forever.’

‘Inspector,’ said Reggie ‘Do you ever get the feeling you are being watched?’

‘Well now you mention it my old China, I had that feeling very intensely indeed, just before we were sucked through the analogue magnetic device in the cabinet at the very edges of reality.’

‘And now? I mean, er, here?’

‘No, you were right in the first place. Someone’s watching us... there’s only one being in all the dimensions evil and powerful enough to land us in this kind of bother...’

‘You don’t mean...’

‘Yes, I do mean...’ And then there was a close up of the Inspector’s face and he looked right into the camera, right into Jeff’s eyes. ‘...Thoraxis!’ Jeff lurched back from the TV, his eyes huge and freaked out, as he seemed to make eye contact with the fictional character on a video of his study room on a TV in outer space in another TV show.

‘I really have no idea what you kids see in this show,’ said Shirley.

‘It’s more what the show sees in us,’ said Jeff, trying to keep his pretence of control, despite being disquieted to the core, and he’d been working on his core all week.

‘We’re not watching Inspector Spacetime,’ said Abed. ‘This is Community, it’s the show we’re from... that’s why we can’t go back in. It’s too meta to go into your own show, like chasing your own tail.’

‘Too meta? Since when has anything been too meta? There must be a way out. Think, Abed.’ pleaded Annie.

‘You want to ask Abed, the guy who turned down a lift in a time-machine that was our only hope of escaping this place?’ scolded Jeff.

‘Time pick. Tiny plastic shield. Lister’s guitar pick!’ said Abed, snapping his fingers. He paused the video with Inspector Spacetime’s intense eyes flickering in the analogue fog and went to search the sleeping quarters where he found Lister’s guitar lying around and a TV. The others filed in. ‘I can’t seem to find the pick.’ The others began ransacking the place and Abed pressed play on the video. The image popped onto the screen of two busty bombshells wrestling in a vat of beans.

Annie said ‘Scuzzy’ and Britta ‘Sexist’ under their breaths at the same time. ‘Wait a minute,’ said Abed. ‘In the bridge between the last two episodes of series VII, Lister looses his right arm. He is an inept guitar player at any rate. Doesn’t it seem plausible, that in the course of Lister drunkenly and left-handedly trying to play guitar the pick flew off into the TV just as we flew off into the TV?’ He tapped the screen with a nail and found it impermeable like a normal TV screen. ‘Hmmm.’ Just then an eerie, haunting howl, that had become comforting to Abed ever since they moved Cougar Town to mid season, came from the other room. It was the unmistakable sound of the time booth rematerializing. ‘Jeff, get in the TV,’ said Abed, applying mutated developing fluid to the video.

‘What?’

‘They think they’re your arch-enemy, you must find the Time-pick. Go, it’s somewhere in the beans. We’ll follow.’ The temperature was cooling rapidly as they climbed into the TV into a great big pool of baked beans.

cCO

The small red space-and-time ship materialised and temporalized into the midsection of Starbug with a hellish banshee howl and our erstwhile heroes extricated themselves from its cramped interior. It looked exactly like a telephone booth.

‘Nice work, Officer BB, you piloted that booth through space and time like a grandma sucks eggs in optimal egg-sucking conditions,’ said Cat as he straightened out his PVC leopard print suit.

‘Now alls we have to do is make a video of Kryten asking some fanboy question and then whisk our way to the Androids studio so this whole adventure can exist in the first place.’

‘Do we really want this whole adventure to exist in the first place?’ asked Kochanski.

‘Are you kidding me?’ said Cat ‘That Dean guy is amazing. Still, I don’t get the Dalmatian thing.’

‘I’m quite proud of meself, I managed to stay in college longer than last time,’ chipped in Lister.

The pennycent had dropped with a classic ‘Of course! Dot dot dot...’ speech from Kryten, explaining the hypothesis he had once heard of of a Showstorm, the phenomenon where characters were shuffled between fictive dimensions as the fictionverse tried to balance itself, precipitating interferences of TV snow.

Lister steadied the camcorder and counted down from 5, leaving the 2 and 1 silent and then somewhat pointlessly adding ‘Action!’

‘Hi Android 97542/P, this is Kryten 2X4B-523P - is there any news about the rumoured cross-over with Inspector Spacetime?’

‘Brutal!’ championed Lister, popping out the cassette and turning to Kochanski who was leaning from the phone booth looking despairing.

‘This isn’t going to work,’ she said.

‘Why not, you had that thing in the palm of your hand just now.’

‘The controls... they’re yoghurt pots with just some spray paint on them. It’s like something from Doctor Who.’

‘Doctor what?’ said Cat.

‘So how did you manage to pilot it before?’

‘I don’t know, it’s like I could think differently but now we’ve passed into our reality, none of it makes sense.’

‘Well we obviously used our own timedrive then.’

Passing the sleeping quarters on their way to the timedrive they heard a commotion. Something strange was going on on the TV. The buff man’s pert pecks were glazed in terracotta slime as semi-mushed beans oozed down the contours of his body. Two busty bombshells, their hair matted into heavy hairy bean drenched flanks held his bulging, sauce covered biceps back as he tossed his head wildly trying to bury his face in the beans for periods of time for some reason. A skinny twinky arab hesitantly grabbed one of them by the foot and was viciously kicked back into a soft black woman with generous and mobile breasts who screamed ‘eat haricot bitches!’, and grabbing both girls by the hair smashed their faces into the ground, splashing orange sauce all over the buxom Jewish girl’s face and breasts.

‘I don’t remember this,’ said Lister.

‘Sure you don’t,’ said Kochanski sarcastically, thinking he was characteristically embarrassed about the involvement of men in his sploshing fetish videos.

‘I’ll get the time drive,’ said Kryten.

‘Wow!’ purred the Cat.

Freed from the female wrestlers by Shirley, Jeff flew forward, overshooting what he was trying to retrieve and sliding into the edge of the bean pit. As he did so his trousers evaporated revealing his beautiful white buttocks, like two giant baked beans. Turning over and revealing a beautiful willy and balls he leaned forward and outstretched his sinewy arm. Just then the eerie howling noise of the booth kicked off. Kochanski, Lister and Cat all instinctively looked back down the corridor and when they returned their gaze the booth had materialised in the ring, Inspector Spacetime stepped out and a well-shod foot stepped onto his veiny hand.

‘Not so fast Thoraxis!’ Reggie picked up the pick Jeff had been straining for and overdemonstratively held it aloft.

‘The time pick is aaaaaaarghs..’ he said as a topless Britta gripped him in a headlock from behind.

‘Me pick, me pick, I was wondering what happened to that.’

‘The timedrive, it’s gone! Stolen!’ shouted Kryten as he walked briskly and ridiculously down the corridor.

‘Nevermind tha’, get the developing fluid, we’re going in!’ Lister unbuttoned his boiler suit and rolled up the sleeves.

Reggie dropped the pick and Troy grabbed it, his clothes falling away from him like the Hulk, the brown body revealing itself somehow soft and muscular simultaneously.

‘Thanks,’ said Lister suddenly appearing and taking with his left hand. Abed’s bony body was still sprawled on the floor, he grabbed Lister by the biker boots and he went flying forward. Everyone piled in, a writhing, slathering slick rope of limbs and feet and muscles and buttocks straining and constantly slipping backwards, marinated in orange viscosity.

‘How did you get here? We took your developing fluid!’ shouted Abed, unable to let a plot point go in the most challenging of situations.

‘You nicked the potato peeler solution you doink! That’s why everyone’s starkers,’ said Lister cradling the pick to his chest as Inspector Spacetime stradled him, his trenchcoat disappearing, his hat evaporating.

‘It’s a co-incidence!’ said Kochanski watching The United Colours of Beanetton with refined curiosity. ‘The Showstorm was caused by the video going back in time, not by the developing fluid. But now we must use the developing fluid to go into the wrestling match, because both time drives are missing. There must be some way of getting from the wrestling match to the Androids production offices and planting the Kryten’s vid or none of this could have happened in the first place.’

By the time she was finished Cat had already got naked and joined them in the ring. ‘Mr Cat, you forgot the video!’ called Kryten after him. But it was no good. Cat had already pulled Inspector Spacetime backwards off Lister as the Inspector’s smooth pale chest was revealed. A now naked Reggie offered his hand to the Inspector and slid over backwards with the force of his grip, his ample penis whipping the sauce and spattering Lister as he got to his feet for a second and tried to pass the pick to Cat.

‘Great!’ said Kochanski, gripping the video and squeezing through the TV frame. As soon as she appeared Britta tried to drown her in beans. ‘You’re the worst,’ she said quickly gasping for breath before her face was mercilessly rubbed back into the beans. The original girls grabbed Britta by her skanky bean matted hair and she screamed as Kochanski threw the vid to Cat, who dropped the pick, which Inspector Spacetime caught and held up at Jeff as if it would release shattering CGI affects that would weaken Jeff. But Jeff just casually took the pick and handed it to Lister.

‘Thanks, man,’ said Lister. Then Lister suddenly had a flashback of finding Rimmer on the psi-moon, chained up and oiled and felt all the blood in his body rushing towards his dick at full speed. ‘Nooooooo...’ he shouted.

The seven naked men and six naked women all stopped for a moment, exhausted and confused and shivering. Lister cupped himself awkwardly. Britta quietly apologised to Kochanski. Bean juice dripped quietly from tendrils of bean-sauce matted clag. And then finally, Android 97542/P appeared with the time drive and just said ‘Oh, smeg!’


End file.
